How Many People Live in Russia?
Live counter for Russia
🇷🇺 Russia Density Map
This live counter uses the same data as our world population page (UN World Population Prospects 2024). It updates every second based on national birth, death, and growth rates.
Russia has a population of approximately 143.4 million people spread across the largest country on Earth (17.1 million km²). The vast majority live in the European part west of the Urals, while Siberia is enormous and almost empty.
Russia has been losing population since the Soviet collapse. The 1990s were catastrophic: male life expectancy dropped to 57. COVID and the Ukraine war have accelerated the decline. An estimated 500,000+ military casualties plus significant emigration of young educated Russians.
📊 Key Demographics
| Metric | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 📊 Total population | ~143.4 million | 9th globally, declining |
| 👶 Fertility rate | 1.41 | Below replacement since 1990 |
| 📅 Median age | 39.6 years | Aging, especially outside Moscow |
| 📉 Net change/year | -600,000 | Deaths far exceed births |
| 🏙️ Urban | 75% | Moscow metro = 13% of country |
| 🍺 Male life expectancy | 66 years | 15 years less than women (81) |
| 📏 Area | 17.1 million km² | Largest country, density 8.4/km² |
🏙️ What Are Russias Largest Cities?
| # | City | Metro area | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🏛️ Moscow | 13.1 million | Capital, Kremlin, 13% of national GDP |
| 2 | 🏛️ St. Petersburg | 5.6 million | Cultural capital, Hermitage, White Nights |
| 3 | ❄️ Novosibirsk | 1.63 million | Largest Siberian city, Akademgorodok |
| 4 | 🏭 Yekaterinburg | 1.54 million | Urals capital, where last Tsar died |
| 5 | 🕌 Kazan | 1.31 million | Tatar capital, UNESCO, sports hub |
💀 Why Do Russian Men Die So Young?
Russian men live to 66 on average. Russian women live to 81. That 15-year gap is the largest of any major country. The causes: alcohol (11.7 liters of pure alcohol per capita per year), cardiovascular disease, accidents, and violence. In rural Russia, one in four men dies before 55. This has created entire villages of widows and a severe shortage of working-age men, worsened by military casualties in Ukraine.
🗺️ Where Do Russians Actually Live?
| Region | Population | % of total | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🏛️ Central (Moscow region) | 40 million | 28% | Growing (migration inflow) |
| 🌾 Volga | 28 million | 20% | Declining |
| ❄️ Siberia | 17 million | 12% | Declining rapidly |
| 🏔️ Urals | 12 million | 8% | Stable |
| 🌊 Far East | 8 million | 6% | Declining (depopulation crisis) |
🥶 Russias Coldest City Has 300,000 Residents
Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia, is the coldest major city on Earth. Winter temperatures regularly drop below minus 40°C (which is also minus 40°F, the point where both scales meet). Car engines must be left running all day or plugged into block heaters. Eyelashes freeze. Glasses fog and stick to faces. Yet 300,000 people live there year-round, largely because of the regions diamond and gold mining industries. Yakutsk was founded in 1632 and has never not been brutally cold.
- rosstat.gov.ru Jan 2027: 142,500,000
- population.un.org Jan 2027: 143,229,000
- worldpopulationreview.com Jan 2027: 143,394,000
- worldometers.info Jan 2027: 142,800,000
- statisticstimes.com Jan 2027: 143,229,000
- database.earth Jan 2027: 143,044,000
- georank.org Jan 2027: 141,773,000
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